Radio DiariesRadio Diaries is a nonprofit project that works with people to document their own lives — in their own words — for public radio: teens, seniors, prison inmates and others whose voices are rarely heard. Produced by Joe Richman, the audio documentaries air on All Things Considered.

Eighty years ago, on Aug. 7, 1930, Lawrence Beitler took what would become the most iconic photograph of lynching in America. Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith were lynched in the town center of Marion, Ind., for allegedly murdering a white factory worker, Claude Deeter, and raping his companion, Mary Ball. But the case was never solved.
Lawrence Beitler/Bettmann/Corbis
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Strange Fruit: Anniversary Of A Lynching

This picture of Willie McGee in jail -- date unknown -- was the one Bridgette McGee-Robinson found under her mother's mattress and spurred her quest to find the truth.
Courtesy New York Public Library
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